June 2012

Happy birthday to the phone that changed everything

- by admin

the iPhone turns 5 today.

which means before that we were all stuck with junky flip-phones with shitty resolution, poor internet browsing capabilities (if any) and the thing I despise most about older mobile phones (or almost any RIM product) the keyboard. including me, with my embarrassing lime-green Samsung piece of crap which I traded in for an iPhone the moment I could afford to buy myself out of my contract with my old provider.

which was around the time the iPhone 3G came out.

Tyrone and I stood in line for over six hours outside our local apple store to get ours. I paid through the nose to buy out my old contract and sign to a new contract/phone with rogers. I even made a drunk video of me smashing my old flip phone on the sidewalk.

and now that I have mine I can't go back.

my iPhone is like that chick you dated that made you realize what a complete idoit you were being up until you met her.

all the other women were useless, stupid, ugly.

she's perfection. or as near to it as you can get.

and you're either so in love with her that you'll never be with anyone else, or you'll become completely repulsed by her perfection and need to push her away and go back to the riffraff.

or in the case of mobile phones, you'll go get an android.

(hehe)

so happy birthday iphone.

thank you for letting us all know what the fuck we were missing all this time.
 

this weekend we're going to the US of A

- by admin


no it's not going to visit Tony though I wish I was. we're going to red lake falls to do some tubing and camping and drinking liquor at 1/4 the price that is up here in canadia.

I've only been there once, and even then not really.

when I was a youngster my nan and granddad took us to some town like an hour south of the border (I forget which) where we hung around in parks and had picnics and probably did some cool stuff that I don't remember anymore.

what I do remember is the first night we stayed in a hotel with an indoor pool and my nan was upset that our sliding door looked out onto it because it was loud. I was swimming in the swimming pool and coming up to the ladder to get out some kid pushed me and I slammed my upper lip against my teeth. I had braces at the time and it hurt like a mofo and I got blood in the pool and it was disgusting.

I also remember reading a Babysitter's Club book on a picnic bench while my brothers played in a park. I'd bought this bookmark for 2$ at some tacky souvenir shop where everything was all wood or glass, you know the kind, and it had a fairy on it. I wish I had it now so I could see if it was still as nice as I thought it was.

probably not.

the thing I remember most, though, is having dinner in some restaurant and the waitress turning to my nan and saying "oh where are you guys from?" and my nan replying "oh we're from Canada" in her very, very British accent and the waitress saying

"oh I thought so, I can tell by your accent"

which was my first impression of Americans ever.

but now I'm grown up and have much more complex views of my neighbours to the south and frankly am excited to go down there and party it up a bit.

even though we'll be there for canada day long weekend and will be partying with a bunch of other Canadians who all have the same idea.

but you shhhh about that.
 

MEME is over and I'm sick

- by admin

which makes sense because over four days I got less than four hours' sleep and was basically running around the whole time.



and even though it was all worth it.

cuz I'm in it for the glory and the music and the people and the love.

and there was lots of it to go around.

now I've got sniffles and am stuffed-up and have totally lost my voice. I've been drinking this tea with fresh ginger and lemon juice and cayenne pepper in it hoping it comes back soon.

hopefully my energy makes its way back shortly as well.

once it's back and I've pulled all my photos there'll be a photo essay coming yr way but for now I wanna talk to you about a show Tyrone showed me the other night

after he brought me home and fed me thin crust pizza and brought me blankets and pillows so I could lie around on the couch

the sweet thing

is a show called Continuum which is a Canadian show that we are three episodes into

it's about the future and time travel and terrorists and so far it's pretty good

or at least has potential

and not only because badass William B. Davis is in it

who you might remember as this guy:


 

Football, MEME & acoustic covers

- by admin



usually on wednesdays I go golfing with my dad because it's the only night of the week we know we're both free, but what with MEME starting YESTERDAY OMG I was all "dad I'm too busy to golf, I need to rest sry"

and he understood because my dad is the greatest, but then my work was all "hey Alyson wanna go see the Bombers exhibition game for free?" and I was all "yeah I'm gonna take my dad!"

so we went and shot the shit and drank some beers and it was nice to watch the sun set over the old (old, old) arena and watch our team lose and hang out with one of my favourite men in the whole world.

I made him take a photo with me and we made the same stupid face and it made me happy.

yesterday MEME 2012 started and we were all out at BOA Lounge which wound up being mega-packed which honestly was surprising because it was a Thursday and all. I've been going crazy all week posting stuff to the site and the twitter and thinking about all the running around and work I have to do this weekend makes me want to lie down.

no sleep for the wicked.

which is why after being awake till 2am I was up at 7:30am and here I am now raring to go. I feel exhausted and worn-out and I have a headache from a busy week at work but fuck it here we go.

I've got photos to tweet and videos to take and swag to give away all weekend while hanging out drinking beers in the sunshine.

MEME has to be one of my favourite weekends out of the entire year -we spend all this time and effort building this massive project and it's so satisfying to see it come together.

because you know a lot of people shit on electronic music. they figure we're all gross sweaty ravers lying on gymnasium floors in the dark eating our own faces and while there's definitely that subculture it's not what we're about.

we're about the good shit.

like this video, which isn't the sort of sounds that you'll find at MEME, but is still terrific


 

Don't be sad, I know you will

- by admin



one of my favourite songs covered by my favourite artist

 

something's been off lately

- by admin

and I don't know what it is. I'm in this weird funk and I can't seem to shake it and I don't know if I need a vacation or a slap in the face or a nice long fuck run but something's eating me lately.

it's like, you know when you leave the house and are halfway down the street and are all "did I lock my front door?"

it's like that. I didn't lock the front door in my mind and now it's nagging at me.

maybe someone's in there. maybe someone isn't.

are they going to break my stuff? steal it?

maybe just rearrange it so when I come home I don't know where anything is anymore.

so now I'm scared to walk around in the dark because I might bump myself on something sharp that didn't used to be there.

I was never scared of the dark before.
 

Hello blog

- by admin

you know I love you

miss you

so much

and I don't take care of you like I should

don't hold you at night

don't tell you how beautiful I think you are

the way you look on my iMac screen in the early morning

how much I appreciate you for connecting me with people I care about

how you're always waiting for me when I've been gone away



too long

but baby

you know it's almost MEME 2012

which means I'm posting stuff over there

and there's so much going on with that

that maybe I don't share as much with you as I used to

but that doesn't mean I'm not doing stuff

thinking about you

it just means it's focused through my twitter instead

so to tide you over

here's a photo of me looking important on the phone

and also a rainbow

before Kat and I destroyed the beer garden at Jazz Fest

xo Blog

yr grl, Shaner
 

Deer + Almond

- by admin

is a place we went to last night after prowling around The Exchange looking for a place that was open after 9pm where we could get a cup of coffee. one f my major gripes about this city is that pretty much everything shuts down after 9pm which leaves people with little incentive to go & stay downtown, but that's a post for another day.

there used to be this greasy diner on the corner of McDermot and Princess where I used to like going because they'd have 1$ hotdog specials from time to time so I led us back that way hoping that, even though the diner was closed down something good would be there.

which there was.

the other great tapas place in town is called Segovia and holy hell is it good but it's kinda expensive and there's barely any seating and Deer+Almond was both pretty inexpensive and had tons of seating even though there were probably a dozen or so other people in there. it's nice but so is this and in a more casual, "you don't have to wait an hour and a half to get in" kind of way.

again, this is 10pm on a Tuesday night in downtown winnipeg. this is unusual. but good.

we had americanos and the kale and quinoa salad which also contained the following: lentils, pickled beets, quail eggs, shredded carrot, sesame and was cool and refreshing and tasted sort of like cucumber. one bowl to share was almost too much food and today I'm eating quinoa in my lunch-salad because it was such a good flavour combination.

we also had the pork belly which was too good for words. as in I actually can't describe how good this crunchy, fatty, sizzling piece of meat was. just have it.

we'd already had dinner hours before so this was more of a (large) late-night snack but we'll definitely be bringing friends back with us to share a bottle of wine and some of their daily specials.

we need more stuff like this downtown: trendy, dark (but not too dark) with night lighting, exquisite and interesting food, a chilled-out atmosphere and it's actually open late on a weeknight which I can't stress is crucial.

afterwards we walked around some more and I took silly pictures of Tyrone but you should really go. you won't be disappointed.


 

we're watching X-Men First Class

- by admin


and it isn't very good.

which isn't surprising because it's a prequel to a movie that I liked which spawned a series of movies that I didn't like but this has Michael Fassboner in it and Tyrone wanted to see it, so, we're watching it.

why are there so many terrible movies nowadays?

lately I've been much more impressed with tv shows (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones) than any movie I've seen lately which makes me sad because they have big budgets and good actors are out there but I don't remember the last time I saw something that made me go

"wow that was a solid flick!"

maybe it was The Social Network but how long ago did that come out?

I need people to recommend some seriously good movies that I haven't seen that I can watch and have my faith restored in the movie-making community because, damn, it's been letting me down lately.

and not like "Reservoir Dogs" or "Black Swan" or whatever, something really different and unique and original and ideally not some blockbuster crap.

so gimme what you got, people.

tweet at me, email me, leave me a comment here or on facebook

but help a sista out

'cause now Fassboner is sporting the grossest puberty 'stache and I can't handle this anymore.


 

It's too hot to blog

- by admin

so here's this gif of Troy and Abed shooting lava until Tyrone installs the air conditioner


 

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